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Mayo Clinic in Arizona to Stop Treating Some Medicare Patients

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.

It will be interesting to see if the Mayo Clinic will stand behind their docs when they're sued for patient abandonment. Not that there's merit to the claims, but there will be lawyers testing the water on that.

I have predicted for years that as medicare/medicade (CMS) reimbursements continue to be cut, and docs respond by not participating, that the federal govt will institute a federal license to practice medicine which will include mandatory CMS participation. Or the states will just do it on their own.

Like I've said before, many docs, myself included, didn't go into this for the money, and therefore won't leave...but the next generation of upcoming students will certainly look for other ways to earn a living, resulting in a huge brain drain in medicine. Actually, it's already happening, as evidenced by the lack of residency filling by American graduates. (that is NOT a jab at foreign medical graduates, merely an observation that Americans are not going into medicine as much as they used to)

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.

-more-

This is only the beginning since Republicans blocked Democratic efforts to prevent automatic 21% reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates scheduled to begin shortly. It amazes me that we have made it illegal to negotiate the prices paid for drugs under Medicare (despite the fact that no private plan pays list price for drugs), but arbitrarily set Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians at levels well below prices paid for non-Medicare patients.

Glenn Lokay went to the Mayo Clinic for an evaluation. He needed an operation on his stomache and his insurance refused to pay for it. It ended up killing him. Tell me now how good insurance companies are.

This is only the beginning since Republicans blocked Democratic efforts to prevent automatic 21% reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates scheduled to begin shortly. It amazes me that we have made it illegal to negotiate the prices paid for drugs under Medicare (despite the fact that no private plan pays list price for drugs), but arbitrarily set Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians at levels well below prices paid for non-Medicare patients.

THE REPUBLICANS BLOCKED WHAAAAAT?????? HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT US TO BUY INTO THAT,YARDLEY???

Yes, the Republicans blocked it because of their desire to have the costs embedded in the overall health plan to inflate the cost artificially. In the Senate only one Democrat or independent has to vote with the Republicans to prevent passage. In fact, however, the health proposals adopted by the House and Senate both contain elimination of the arbitrary rate reductions under Medicare. This would not take effect until after the automatic cuts have been implemented.

At this stage, I hope the Democrats take the same position the Republicans have taken. Include the change as part of an overall program providing essentially universal health coverage or let the cuts happen. If the overall reform fails, let those who opposed the elimination of the automatic cuts in the fall run on their records as Medicare patients are being turned away from receiving care. If Republicans wish to propose their own bill for eliminating these cuts, let them propose the new revenues that will pay the cost.

but Jefff... the costs should have been included in the health care reform bill. They were dropped as a part of Democratic trickery to get the bill passed.

As I understand it, the Medicare costs were dropped (as an expense) and then that "revenue" was turned over to the reform bill to reduce the costs. However, they also wrote Treasury bonds to pay for the Medicare costs. The result is a double accounting, the bonds plus the costs attributed to the health care bill. Surely that violates good accounting principles.

Meanwhile, Reid et al shamelessly lied about how much the healthcare bill would really cost.

Like I've said before, many docs, myself included, didn't go into this for the money, and therefore won't leave...but the next generation of upcoming students will certainly look for other ways to earn a living, resulting in a huge brain drain in medicine. Actually, it's already happening, as evidenced by the lack of residency filling by American graduates. (that is NOT a jab at foreign medical graduates, merely an observation that Americans are not going into medicine as much as they used to)

So, I guess we can add physician to the list of jobs that Americans are too good for.

"For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." -- Luke 12:48